Fake or modified?

Started by inabityo, September 03, 2020, 08:49:20 am

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inabityo

I have recently picked up a famicon with disk drive for cheap in HK. Its missing a power lead so I am unsure if it is working or not yet.
Upon further inspection, it seems a little odd - maybe a knock off? It has custom wiring and the case is more yellow than I believe it should be (including the inside, under the eject button etc). Joypad one also has a joystick attached to the D-Pad. The mainboard is printed with Nintendo, however the AV board doesn't appear to be the original.
Does anyone know what modifications have been done to it? or if it is indeed a real Famicon.
All other markings appear correct!

P

It's probably a genuine Famicom imported to Hong Kong and modified for PAL. The power/AV board is replaced by the "Family Game" or "Makko Toys" board which is very common in Hong Kong.

The d-pad joystick is interesting. It's also not made by Nintendo AFAIK.

inabityo

Quote from: P on September 04, 2020, 07:04:10 amIt's probably a genuine Famicom imported to Hong Kong and modified for PAL. The power/AV board is replaced by the "Family Game" or "Makko Toys" board which is very common in Hong Kong.

The d-pad joystick is interesting. It's also not made by Nintendo AFAIK.

Yeah it's weird. I wondered if it had been glued on? Doesn't look like it? Maybe it was some kind of purposeful modification? Not sure.

P

It's not just a swapped d-pad for the joystick one?

inabityo

Probably! Seems like am odd mod, the previous owner didn't seem that kinda guy - who knows   :bub:

Flying_Phoenix

It's not a Hong Kong Famicom, it has Japanese stickers. It's Japanese Famicom with an aftermarket RF board.

P

That's what I meant to say.

FAMICOM_87

The motherboard is vandalazed :( it is grisly coped of! And this power board is very strange, why it have not connector or points for ribbon cable? WTF it all of this?

krzy

The A/V/DC board contains MK5060 chip and a switch that forces the video to either 50 or 60Hz mode.
The additional wires route clock_in, clock_out, video and ppu_/ce to this MK60 chip.
I saw such HonkKong famicom two times and one time with exact same wiring (even the colors match).
You can read more about it here:
https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=19178

P

The mobo is sawed off where the original power board where so that the Makko Toys power board could be added. Maybe the mobo and power board were just one big board on this revision? That would explain why the ribbon cable isn't used. The Makko Toys power board do have a ribbon connector, though it doesn't look like its connected.
This is probably the necessary mod to install the Makko Toys board for this particular revision of the Japanese Famicom mobo.

These imported and modified Japanese Famicom's outsold the official Hong Kong NES (a PAL NES with a different CIC from PAL-B and PAL-A). I guess it was easier to find cheap 60-pin games and then there was the Famicom Disk System which was easier to pirate (unlike in Japan, people had no problems with pirating games in Hong Kong at the time).

Nintendo eventually gave up on the Hong Kong NES and made their own Hong Kong Famicom with an official version of this 50/60 Hz switchable power board, so it doesn't have to be modded.